The Fifth Child by Dorris Lessing
Posted: 16 Jun 2015, 20:01
I struggled to understand the symbolism in this novel and I suspect I won't be able to understand it until I know a great deal about dorris Lessing's life.
This is the first novel by her that I've read and while I've been advised to begin reading Lessing's works from The golden notebook. I decided to start with this one instead because I found it more suitable to my own literary tastes.
The most amazing thing about lessing's writing is her ability to terrify you with something that appears from the outside perfectly harmless. In this book, everything is just off kilter enough to give the uncomfortable feeling of waiting for the anvil to drop but not enough so that suspension of disbelief kicks in and you can safely chuck all your apprehension up to the wind. Because hey, it's all fantasy, anyways. It's not like any of this could ever actually happen!
The trouble here is that all of this sounds perfectly plausible. Hell! stranger things have happened.
My initial thoughts were that "Ben" was a metaphor for what humans would eventually do to themselves by procreating too often. By using up all the planet's resources and churning out too many children without any regard for the future.
And maybe it's a metaphor for excess in general. A warning of the dire consequences of indulging too much in anything. Ignoring the state and demands of the world just to achieve some fantastical image of one's life.
but I can't really be sure. that's what's driving me up the wall here.
doris Lessing has crafted a novel that asks a slew of questions with an ending that isn't disappointingly vague but still can be considered as an exercise for the reader's imagination and creative problem solving skills.
This is the first novel by her that I've read and while I've been advised to begin reading Lessing's works from The golden notebook. I decided to start with this one instead because I found it more suitable to my own literary tastes.
The most amazing thing about lessing's writing is her ability to terrify you with something that appears from the outside perfectly harmless. In this book, everything is just off kilter enough to give the uncomfortable feeling of waiting for the anvil to drop but not enough so that suspension of disbelief kicks in and you can safely chuck all your apprehension up to the wind. Because hey, it's all fantasy, anyways. It's not like any of this could ever actually happen!
The trouble here is that all of this sounds perfectly plausible. Hell! stranger things have happened.
My initial thoughts were that "Ben" was a metaphor for what humans would eventually do to themselves by procreating too often. By using up all the planet's resources and churning out too many children without any regard for the future.
And maybe it's a metaphor for excess in general. A warning of the dire consequences of indulging too much in anything. Ignoring the state and demands of the world just to achieve some fantastical image of one's life.
but I can't really be sure. that's what's driving me up the wall here.
doris Lessing has crafted a novel that asks a slew of questions with an ending that isn't disappointingly vague but still can be considered as an exercise for the reader's imagination and creative problem solving skills.